


A Winchester Christmas: Hark, the Herald Angels Sing

by wormstaches (lamarnza)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon, Christmas, Christmas Tree, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-22
Updated: 2011-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-27 20:52:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/299935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lamarnza/pseuds/wormstaches
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Christmas eve: same thing every year, two beers and two boys in a motel room surrounded by snow in God-knows-where-America. It's the same shitty life and shitty beer, with everyone they've loved gone, until an unexpected visitor shows up at their door.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Winchester Christmas: Hark, the Herald Angels Sing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Godbriel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Godbriel/gifts).



            Christmas eve: same thing every year, two beers and two boys in a motel room surrounded by snow in God-knows-where-America. The TV crackles through commercials full of Christmas cheer, static on the edges, and Sam takes a swig of his beer, eyeing Dean, who’s watching the screen with a blank, bleary-eyed stare. As Dean polishes off his beer, chugging it down and wiping the his mouth with the back of his hand before reaching for another, Sam shifts his gaze to the bullet-punctured baseball cap balanced on the armrest of an empty chair, and then to the scraggly Christmas tree they bought at the gas station along with a $9.99 12-pack of plastic ornaments complete with a yard of lights perched on the generic, glass-topped desk in the corner.

 

           He sighs and runs his fingers through his hair. Things were the same, but since when were they so _sad_.

 

           “Hey, Dean––”

 

           “Look, it’s _A Charlie Brown Christmas_ ,” Dean exclaims, a slur creeping into his voice. He points with the remote at the TV Screen, turning the volume up. “Remember how we used to watch this every year with Dad?”

 

           “Yeah. Dean––”

 

           “And remember how when we watched it with––” Dean coughs around his beer at the blank their thoughts fill “–– he was very confused and kept saying it was ‘wrong’ with that expression he…”

 

           Sam gives Dean a sympathetic half-smile. “Dean, I know this is hard, that you miss Bobby and Cas––”

 

           “Don’t, Sammy, okay. Just don’t,” Dean snaps.

 

           “Dean––”

 

           “Sam! I really don’t want to hear it, why don’t you get that? It’s another year and it’s not the end of the world, but hey, I can’t seem to see that as a good thing anymore. We’re stuck in another shitty motel in another shitty town, with a shitty Christmas tree, drinking shitty beer, and we don’t even have a goddamn angel anymore to show that this holiday means _anything_.”

 

           Sam gulps down some beer, staring at the TV and watching Charlie Brown sulk through the snow (just like Dean, he couldn’t help but think). He’d known this was coming, eventually.

 

            “We don’t have _anything_ anymore, Sammy. It’s just us, and it sucks.”

 

            Sam glances around the room, eyes running over the dismantled rifles on the counter, the open duffle bags at the foot of the beds. He wants to say something, anything to Dean, to change the fact that what he was saying was the truth.

 

            “Why does this happen to us? We save the world and instead of everything going right–– the sky getting bluer, the grass getting greener, the chicks getting hotter, everything just goes even more up shit’s creek. It’s like it’s the fucking titanic, man.”

 

            They both fall silent for a moment, remembering Cas and the Fates.

 

            “Dean, it’s okay for you to––”

 

            Dean holds up a hand. “Don’t.”

 

            “I know it doesn’t go with your whole macho thing, but it’s okay that you were––”

 

            “Sam,” Dean warns.

 

            Sam sighs, turning back to his beer and away from the TV. He’d been poking at it for months, and he’d been expecting this reaction; but he’d hoped after Bobby Dean would at least…God, it’s not like he would care anyway. Wouldn’t care that his brother finally felt _something_ for someone, even if it was too late and totally fucked up.

 

            They watch Charlie Brown in silence, nursing their beers, and every now and then Sam checks on Dean out of the corner of his eye and presses his hand, biting his lip. The kids eat snowflakes and Sam remembers running around the edge of a frozen pool with Dean when he was six, head back and tongue outstretched to catch the wisps of snow fluttering down from the blank gray face of the heavens. There’s a knock at the door and both of their eyes dart to the cracking wood paneled frame before looking at each other, silently deciding whether they should leave it unanswered and then who should open it. After a few seconds of unspoken arguing, Dean gets to his feet, grabs a shotgun from the coffee table, tucking into the back of his jeans, and goes to the door.

 

            Sam winces as soon as it opens, knowing it was a bad mistake to send a sad and angry Dean with a few beers under his belt to get the door. A small child in a cheap felt Santa hat is standing before them nervously, clutching a set of wrinkled papers. Dean stands there expectantly, waiting for the child to announce his purpose, one hand behind his back, gripping the gun. The kid clears his throat and begins to sing squeakily, reading off the papers, “ _Hark the herald angels_ –– _”_

 

At the word angels, Dean slams the door shut in the kid’s face and storms back to the sofa, flopping back angrily and exchanging the gun for the beer oozing condensation on the coffee table in one motion.

 

            Sally asks Charlie what he wants for Christmas and Sam repeats the question to himself in his head, knowing what he would say and what Dean would say–– a bottle of Jack and a stacked blonde–– and what they would both mean: to be in a cluttered house with two more people eating pie.

 

            “ _Please note the size and color of each item,”_ Lucy says and Sam thinks he must be on a role of thinking thoughts Dean doesn’t want brought up because he supplies, _Six feet tall and trench-coated_ , and immediately feels guilty for making jokes about things he really shouldn’t joke about, the corner of his mouth quirking upwards in a smile. “ _All I want is what I have coming to me. All I want is my fair share._ ” And Sam actually chuckles at that line, dry and humorless, because _damn skippy, don’t we all_.

 

            Schroeder is jamming out the _Peanuts_ theme song on his piano while Charlie tries to organize the show and Sam turns to Dean and says, “Hey, Dean, remember when I bought that plastic lap keyboard at the outlet mall in Cincinnati and learned to play it by ear.” He laughs. “You guys wanted to kill me because even with the ACDC on full blast you couldn’t drown it out from the backseat.” He waits for a response, but realizes Dean isn’t listening, beer slack in one hand and turned towards the door.

 

            “Is someone there or is it just me?” He turns down the volume on the TV and sure enough there’s a firm, evenly spaced knocking. They glance at each other before Sam gets to his feet, grabbing the gun and crossing the room to the door. It’s his turn now, and he hopes he can find some mints or something in his jacket pocket to give to the kids. Dean has turned back to the TV, opening another beer and kicking his feet up onto the coffee table, knocking empty bottles onto the thick, puke green carpet. Sam notices some of the lights on the Christmas tree are already starting to go out as he opens the door. And fuck. He can’t speak and he knows he should pull the gun out and shoot like there’s no tomorrow because hell if this is real, but it’s been so long since he saw those blue eyes, bright and confused at his empty expression, blinking away grimy water that drips from his sodden hair and into his eyes, brushing away a dead fish which falls to the stucco floor as he tilts his head to the side. His shirt sticks to his frame, see through and beginning to stiffen with ice, and he looks so small without his coat, the one folded neatly in the trunk of the Impala next to the crossbows.

 

            Sam opens his mouth to say something, anything, but all that comes out is a strangled noise. He swallows and tries again, and despite the million and one things he expected to say, he says the only thing that makes sense, “Dean, there’s someone here for you.” Because as much as it pains him to admit it, there no way the person standing outside, hair turning to icicles, sure to smell like a sewer come summer, is even aware of him now that his eyes have landed on the man grousing as he sets down his beer and gets to his feet.

 

            “Sammy, it’s your turn to deal with people, I did last time, what don’t you understand about––” If Sam thought the look on his face must have been priceless, he’s sure it’s nothing compared to Dean’s. His face falls slack-jawed, eyes wide and bright, ready to spill, and it looks like there’s a war the scale of the one they fought going on in his head as his brows try to furrow into a scowl and his lips try to tug into a smile, stumbling on words.

 

            “Cas,” is all he manages to say, and it’s a prayer and a question and everything he almost said on all of those Last Nights.

 

            “Dean,” Cas replies, solemn, and Sam looks away uncomfortably because he can hear the way his voice is _relishing_ saying that word. “I awoke, and I was…I was empty again, just me, inside my vessel, and it was all dark and wet and I had no idea where to go and then I heard your voice and you were _praying_ , Dean, and it was the way it used to be, when you called for me, and I hadn’t been able to go for so long, but this time, I could, and I did. I was in the parking lot and there were many rooms, but I could still hear you––”

 

            And then Dean is pushing Sam out of the way and stepping outside, slamming the door behind him. Sam goes back to the sofa and watches them through the open slats of the blinds. Dean opens his mouth to yell and pauses before wrapping his arms tightly around Cas’s shoulders, pulling him tight against him, fingers digging into the wet cotton of his shirt. Cas is stiff for a moment, posture rigid as ever, before his arms are moving, circling around Dean’s shoulders and hooking behind his neck and Sam can feel his own grin. They stand like that for a long time, and he’s sure they’re squeezing each other tightly, maybe even as hard as Cas did when he pulled Dean out of hell. He hopes (because he has nothing left to pray to), that Dean doesn’t fuck this up as he probably will, but Sam guesses he doesn’t give his brother enough credit because Dean is placing his hands on both side of Cas’s face and pulling him forward, locking their lips together and Sam does feel a little bit grossed out, yes, as their mouths part, but it’s overshadowed by the giddy delirium of the moment; they’re sitting in a shitty motel filled with empty bottles on Christmas Eve, wishing for a miracle, and they got one. Sam wonders if God is to thank for this, if God is even out there, somewhere, laughing His ass off as one of His most devout soldiers sucks the face off of a blasphemous, lustful human with a penchant for alcohol.

 

            Sam is wondering all these things as he gets to his feet, passing the Christmas tree with the ken doll in a suit and miniature trench coat on the top, skirting around the tangled forms of Dean and Cas outside. He’s smiling like he hasn’t in years as he goes to request another room, because by the purposeful way Dean is pushing Cas into their room and closing the door, he can tell they’re going to need it.

 

            They don’t have the decency to close the blinds and as Sam goes down the stairs, he catches a glimpse of Dean tugging his t-shirt over his head and Cas fiddling with his belt buckle, small fish falling from the folds of his pants as they drop. Behind them, the final scene of _A Charlie Brown Christmas_ plays, the kids in a circle around their own dilapidated tree, singing:

 _“‘Hark,’ the herald angels sing, ‘Glory to the newborn king. Peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconcile.’”_


End file.
